This weekend Dave, Roger and I headed over to Leavenworth to hike through the Enchantments.  We headed in from the Snow Lake trailhead and back down Asgaard Pass to the Colchuck Lake trailhead.  The trail was in great shape, even with the snow level starting around Snow Lake, making route finding a little tricky.  We packed in ice axes, but ended up favoring our trekking poles once we hit the snow in the upper basin.

From Colchuck we biked back down to the Snow Lake trailhead to grab the car before getting some food and much needed rest.  It was a great trip and a good chance to do a little last minute gear testing and make final adjustments before heading to Montana in less than 3 weeks!

Share This

Team Kagome headed out to Whidbey Island last weekend for the 15 hour BEAST race. This race was changed to a stage format after some last minute permit issues.  To allow for more navigation practice and due to scheduling conflicts, Roger and Jared were on one team and Dave and Jen were on another.  Roger and Jared blasted through the first leg (a 4-5hr bike and run course) with one of the fastest times.  We then spent the evening putting in some “bonus” training miles that werenot part of the race, just to get more time on our feet.  We wandered around for 3-4 hours after the first leg.  This meant only 30-45 minutes of sleep before the kayak leg the next morning.  We did’nt have a fast boat, so our hope was only to not give up too much time.  We put in a solid effort and managed to only lose 10 minutes to the top team in the ~20km paddle course.

The last leg was another bike/run course that started in a “chase” format based on cumulative time up to that point.  Roger and Jared were in 2nd place, 10 minutes behind the 1st place team.  This meant they started 10 minutes after the first place team.  The segment began with a beautiful run on the beach and we closed the gap on the 1st place team by the time we finished the run.  The bike leg was fairly casual as we shared navigation with the 1st place team and all rolled into the finish for a 1st place tie.  We were pleased with the result given that we had assumed this would just be a training race, but once you get in the mix it is hard to slow down.

Share This

Things were very busy at work this past week so I hadn’t given the weekend much thought until Wednesday or Thursday.  During our climbing certification on Thursday, Dave mentioned that he had a very ambitious 30+ mile run planned for one of the weekend days.  Jen mentioned that she was going to get out but was going to keep it a little lower key since she is just beginning to regain her health after being sick.

I realized that this was one of the few weekends between now and PQ that I didn’t have something scheduled so I thought I should take the opportunity and go for a long outing.  Dave and I tried to figure out a way to incorporate both of our activities and meet up to accomplish them together, but it didn’t work out.  I had contacted another friend, but it was logistically too challenging so I was going solo.I decided that I would shoot for a 24+ hour outing.  Since the snow line is still so low and I didn’t feel like driving a long way, I decided to take advantage of the Issaquah Alps.  The informal goal was to try to be out for 24 + hours, to log some decent mileage, and to get in some elevation. It wasn’t until Friday night after work (in true adventure racer form) that I started to try and put things together.  I decided to take care of all my domestic obligations before leaving because I knew I wouldn’t feel very motivated after the outing.  I originally thought I would leave Friday night, but by the time I had finished cleaning and packing it was 11:30.  I decided I would go whenever I woke up.

I woke up at about 5 a.m., but the thought of jumping out of bed to get right after it didn’t sound too appealing so I just laid there.  As I found myself still in bed by 6:30 it became clear that my staying in bed was classic avoidance behavior.  I knew it would be a decent work out, but the thought of moving for 24+ hours straight didn’t really excite me especially without the motivation of teammates to share the experience with. 

I was finally able to pull my act together and was heading down the road on my bike a little before 8.  I left the house with my twenty eight pound pack on under threatening skies.  The plan was to ride to Cougar Mt, ditch the bike, trek from Cougar across Squawk Mt and do an out and back on Tiger Mt before reversing course.  As I rode to Cougar, I decided I would head for the Sky View Trailhead.  I ditched my bike in the brush at the entrance to the parking lot and locked it to a tree.  I noticed the pack weight fairly quickly.  I commute to work with a pack several days a week, but it doesn’t weigh nearly as much as my pack did that day and my commute is only about an hour fifteen.  My back was killing me as I rode up Lamont.  It hurt bad enough to make me nauseous.  That was a first for me.  I clearly need to start wearing a heavier pack more frequently especially when cycling.  I think I made a similar comment after our first team outing.  Note to self -put weight on back more frequently or pay dearly come PQ.

As I transitioned from bike to foot I realized I had left the first of the three maps that I was going to need at home.  Talk about a good start.  I wasn’t sure what to do.  I could ride into Issaquah and buy another map.  I could ride to a trailhead on one of the maps that I did have or I could be lazy.  Hmmm…actually it was a no-brainer for me on that day.  I would be lazy.  As they say on that television game show, I phoned a friend.  My teammate Dave is a bit of an Issy Alps savant.  Can there be such a thing?  Well the guy has logged a tremendous number of hours up there and has a mental blue print of the trail system.  He has spent so much time up there I hear rumor they are considering naming a trail after him.  I think it is going to be called the Heyting Express and it will be a shorts only trail (no long pants allowed.)

He gave me some solid directions (or in my favorite orienteering vernacular - directions that were “nuts on.”) In the end, I think it was kind of a blessing that I left the map.  I can get uptight about things like that and having to force myself to mellow out was good practice.  You can’t get lost out there and I had no time lines so in the worst case scenario I would have been walking circles for 24+ hours.  Not fun, but no big deal either.  With Dave’s directions and a little map of Cougar Mt they had at the trailhead I was able to work my way over to Squawk.  I ended up coming off of Squawk into the wrong neighborhood.  I decided instead of going back I would just wonder down to Issaquah and pick up a different trail system then I intended.  While the urban trek wasn’t necessarily my first choice, it was only a few miles before I was on trail again.  A minor price to pay for forgetting the map. 

Once on Tiger the plan was to take trails that gave me the most direct line to the Rattle Snake Lake Ridge trail. I realized I probably wouldn’t make it that far, but it seemed as good of an objective as any. 

The weather was excellent for this time of year.  I really lucked out.  It was partly cloudy with lots of sun breaks.  Compared to last year when I spent many a long weekend in the rain or worse yet stuck on the trainer inside trying to prepare for IMAZ, this year’s weather has been amazing.  I hope I didn’t just jinx it. Sorry if I did.  Let me tell you, it would have been a short outing if it had been one of those constant day long rains.

I was surprised at how much I was enjoying the day.  I left the house tentative about the long day ahead, didn’t care for the bike ride with the weight, but found myself really enjoying the trek.  I tried to jog some of the down hills and managed to shuffle a few of the short flats, but most of the time it was a hike.  I never came near race pace (which I was a little frustrated with myself about), but I was still happy I was logging some mileage.

Walking up a particularly step section of trail on Tiger I pasted two woman.  Well actually it was a grandmother, a daughter, and an infant.  When I passed them grandma was carrying the infant in her arms. And to think I was just whining about carrying a 28 pound pack.  Okay, by this point it was probably more like 23 -25 pounds now that I had consumed some water and food.  I had nothing on those ladies. 

Speaking of goodies, that alone can be a motivating factor for these outings.  I generally make a concerted effort to eat fairly well, but when I set out on one of these ventures I load up on some less then healthy food. I made a bunch of ham sandwiches with cheese, I packed a bunch of candy bars, I had some Cadbury Easter Eggs, some molasses cookies, and the obligatory can of Pringles.  Now if I had had that list in mind while I was trying to haul myself out of bed I would have been up at 5:01. 

It started to get noticeably colder around 4:30 and the roots were getting slippery by around 6.  It was definitely freezing at the higher elevations.  As my teammates can attest, it is weird how difficult it can be to see at night with your headlamp when it is freezing.  Depending on the direction of the wind, when you exhale the fog that your breath creates diffracts the headlamp beam and you can’t see anything but a bright glow.  It is like having your car headlights on high while you are going fast in a very dense fog.  Not that I have ever done that of course.  It can make footing and trail finding a bit challenging.  I have tried holding my breath but that doesn’t seem to work so well for some reason.  That approach causes all sorts of other issues. Actually I usually end up just breathing out the side of my mouth.  I sure was missing my teammates about then.

It was interesting how quickly my resolve and morale started to fad as night set in.  What is it about the dark? Originally my turn around time was going to be 8:00 p.m., but after my navigational snafu coming off Squawk I thought I should push it back to 9:00 since I figured I would be saving some time when I went from Tiger to Squawk on my return trip.  I then thought I would make it 9:30 because I was going to push a little bit on the way back.  However, by the time it was dark it was all that I could do to keep heading out.  I played all sorts of mind games, but by 7:30 p.m. I threw in the towel and started heading back.  The dark just destroyed my mental resolve.

I haven’t done a great deal of long night hiking solo and boy can the mind wonder.  I also found the footing to be a bit challenging, but some of that could have had to do with the freezing conditions. 

For those who haven’t been to the Poo Poo Point launch sight at night, you would be well served to check it out.  It is an amazing view of the city lights and the surrounding hills.  There was very little wind so I decided to take a break and enjoy the view.  I think it was around 9:30 at this point.  I grabbed some food, put on another layer, and laid down on the paraglider’s take-off carpet using my pack as a pillow and kicked back to enjoy the view.  There was an owl in a tree just behind the bathroom that was very talkative.  I think he may have been commenting on how rare it is to have so little wind up there and how amazing the view was.  He was one of four owls I heard that night.  I must have heard two different varieties because one had a much more distinct call then the others.  I also had the you know what sacred out of me in the middle of the night by some raccoons as they scurried up a tree.  I obviously scared them to.  Sorry guys but you got me back in kind.

At 10:30 I ran out of fluids.  I heard the dum-dum-dum of the foreboding Hollywood music as I got air on the final suck off my hydration bladder.  I knew I would be paying the Piper a little extra before the night was through for running out of water.  I was a long way from my bike where I still had two mostly full water bottles.  I am not about to drink water coming off the Issy Alps.  Not only do you become dehydrated without water, but you are also much less likely to eat which messes with your calorie intake.   Maybe worst of all (my teammates will understand this), I still hadn’t cracked the seal on the Pringles.  I had been saving them for later in the night when I was going to need the pick-me-up that comes from a tasty snack.  Salt without fluids is never a wise idea, so I ended up packing that can the entire trip without having a single chip.  Oh well, I guess I am ready for next time.

I set out with three liters of water and knew that I would likely run out, but it happened a little sooner then I had expected, so much for pushing the pace on the way back.  I decided that I should probably keep the pace down which would reduce my sweating hopefully limiting how thirsty I would become.  Truth be told I wasn’t moving so quick at this point anyhow.  Once it got dark, I didn’t seem so motivated.

From about midnight until I got back to my bike at 4:15, I was the lolly-gagging hiker.  Each time I had to pull out the map, I would lay down and take my own sweet time.  Fortunately it was cold so none of those breaks ever became too extended.  This was clearly not race pace.

Once back at my bike I had several long savory drinks of sports drink, boy did that taste good.   I ate a little and changed my clothes.  Oh yeah and got very cold….brrr.  The ride down Lamont was brutally cold.   It was cold out, but it felt much colder then it was.  I am sure it was a combination of the air temperature, the wet cold riding gear I put back on, the time of day, and low blood sugar levels.  I swear it took half the ride before my hands became functional again.  I was home by about 6:50.

The final analysis:  While I fell short of my 24+ hour goal I was still pleased with my efforts.  It was good to be on foot that long and my back protested the pack so it clearly needed the work.  I was a little unhappy with my slow pace but without any specific motivation like time or teammates or destination etc., it is tough to push too hard.  I definitely need to wear a heavy pack more.  I would also be well served to log more long outings, but I don’t think the schedule is going to allow that.  As the only person on this team without multiday racing experience, it just boggles my mind how we will be able to do this over and over for up to ten days.  I guess come July I will have an answer to that question.

By the numbers - for all those data heads out there:
Time: 22 hours 50 minutes
Mileage: 104.2 - 55 on bike and 49.2 trekking.
Elevation gain: 12,802 ft. - 2,362 ft. biking and 10,440 ft. trekking.
Calories burned: 10,462 - 2,961 on bike and 7,501 trekking.
Heart rate: 115 average with a max of 159 - Most Definitely Not Race Pace.

Share This

14 hour training session in Anacortes and on Orcas Island. Started off with a 12-mile bike on the single-track trails in Anacortes around Cranberry Lake. Then packed it up and hit the ferry over to Orcas Island for an 18-mile bike to the summit of Mt. Constitution. There was snow and ice on the road and biking up it was tricky. We decided to change our initial plan to bike and hike near the summit on the trail system on the upper mountain and instead headed back down the road to the Mountain Lake trail. There we ran 5 miles around the lake before heading to Cascade Lake trail to run another 2 miles. We saw markers and people sleeping in their cars that were up on Orcas to run the 50k. Their course got changed as well, due to the amount of snow and ice on the planned route.

We biked back to the ferry dock and grabbed some warm drinks and food before catching a few winks on the ferry and running another 4-1/2 miles at Washington park with Dave’s buddy Chase, that had arranged an orienteering course for us to practice on. Fun trip and nice to have some backup options so that we could change our course due to the snow. We’d like to go again and do our original route sometime later this summer.

Share This

TA2 - Redtown trailhead

January 18 -19, 2008

Well it was an interesting training outing this weekend.  We got a little later start than intended which is to be expected.  We met at Rick and Jen’s house near Green Lake on Friday night.  Once we were all packed up Rick gave us the maps and the list of checkpoints we needed to hit.  We made some minor gear adjustments and were on our bikes by about 8:30 p.m.  We rode down to the Burke Gilman from Jen’s house.  The Seattle skyline all lit up was beautiful as we road down Stone (I think that was the street) toward the trail.  We got on the trail near Gas Works Park and rode it to Marymoor.  We cut through Marymoor and got on the Sammamish Trail and rode into Issaquah.  We road through town and got on a trail system that put us at the Highpoint Exit off of I-90 which is one of the entry points to Tiger Mt.  It was a cold ride with temperatures near or below freezing the entire ride.  I was glad for my booties, but Dave and Jen hadn’t worn theirs and had some cold or numb tootsies as a result, ouch.  Rick met us at Highpoint and we transitioned from our bikes to our trekking gear.  It was about 1:10 a.m. and Rick took our bikes and bike gear home with him as we headed off for a long night on foot (what a guy).  We were in transition for just over ten minutes.  Only an adventure racer or a spouse of an adventure racer would be crazy enough to get out of a warm bed on a Friday night/Saturday morning to pick up some bikes for fools out in the middle of the night.  What a guy, I can’t stress that enough.

We were in snow almost immediately.  Fortunately these trails were well tracked and Dave, being an Issaquah Alps expert, knew most of the trails like the back of his hand.  We really lucked out with the weather.  It was cloudy and cold with occasional brief pockets of clearing, but there was almost no precipitation all night.  We were making steady consistent progress and things began to get interesting around 3 a.m.  The sleep monsters attached Dave first.  We were on a snow covered forest service road that was long and mostly straight.  There were two troughs in the snow from trucks driving to service the cell towers and walking was much easier in these tracks.  Gradually Dave started to fall off the pace.  I would be spacing out in my own world telling myself to keep moving forward and to ignore the sleepiness and I would occasionally look back to make sure we were all together.  I look back and I can see Dave has faded way back.  So we wait and Dave wanders up and says he is feeling fine physically but he keeps falling asleep.  He says he is walking along and the next thing he knows he is just standing there a little disoriented and realizes he has fallen asleep.  He comes to and catches up and it replays itself all over again.  Jen says she is fighting the sleep monsters a bit too.  I feel tired and I really want to lie down, but I haven’t been attacked yet. 

We go a while longer on the service roads and now the monsters get me.  This was a first for me.  I have never fallen asleep walking.  I used to sleep walk as a kid, but this was much different.  I would walk in the trough telling myself “keep walking, keep walking” and then I would close my eyes and try to grab a few winks while walking.  You would stumble around like you were really drunk, but the trough would keep you moving in the right direction.  It was humorous to watch the headlamps bounce around erratically.  It looked like drunks walking out of the bar at closing.

There was a steep hill full of snow on my right that I kept dreaming was a bank of clouds that was being lit by the lights from the city below.  It was just the light from my head lamp indirectly lighting the snow.  Each time it would take me a while for my head to clear and for me to realize that it was a snow bank and not clouds.  One time I woke up standing still in the trough with my hands out like I was trying to catch my balance.  I had dreamed that I was walking off a cliff.  The best was I dreamt that I was walking through a bunch of crushed green Gatorade cups like you would see at an aid station in a run.  It was just the foot prints in the snow but my mind turned them into Gatorade cups…crazy. 

By about 5 we were back on the trail in the trees and this seemed to stimulate our brains enough that we were able to shake the sleep monsters.  By seven it was beginning to get light and I felt a lot better.  As we were finally coming off Tiger we went through some strong wind and were pelted by freezing rain.  I am not complaining because we were only in it for just under an hour and that was it for the harsh conditions, we really lucked out. 

We walked the Issaquah Hobart road, went through a neighborhood and were on Squawk Mt.  The trail was silky and relatively snow free which was awesome after an entire night of walking in the snow.  It didn’t take too long to get across Squawk and onto Cougar Mt.  Jen called Rick and let him know our progress and he headed out to meet us at the Red Town Trail head on the other side of Cougar.  We made quick work of Cougar and were all glad to see Rick.  I think it was about 12:30 when we met him.  Jen had a sore knee and Dave had a family function to get to so Rick was nice enough to accompany me on the ride back to their house.  It was a good thing because I would have had a heck of a time working my way from Newcastle across I-90 through the U-District to Green Lake.  Rick road my legs off and trying to keep up was challenging, but it felt great to crank the heart rate up a bit.  It also became clear that I need to start logging more hill climbing hours.  I would hit a slight incline and the legs would disappear.  The hard ride home took about an hour forty and took what I had left out of me which is the way you should end a quality outing.

Final stats were 94 miles which broke down to about 64 bike miles and 30 trekking miles.  The elevation gain was a little over 7,000 feet and it took just under 19 and a half hours.

The take way lesson was I need a much better bike lighting system, I need to work the hills a lot more especially on the bike, and I need to adapt the shoulders to carrying weight.

Questions – how in the world do you do this for another 6 to 9 days straight?  PQ is going to average around 10 to 12K of elevation gain a day – HOLY COW – OUCH.  Rick told me that the sleep monsters are much more difficult to deal with from day 3 on.  All I can say to that is WOW!  I guess I will figure out how to deal with that when the time comes.  Preparing for PQ is one interesting endeavor.

I hope your weekend was great.  ~ Roger

Share This